Blankets and Mirrors
by WaterWarrior294
Summary: "Why wasn't she strong enough? Why didn't she stand up to the Dai Li and try to save him?" Katara painfully thinks over her guilt for not trying to rescue Aang sooner. Kataang fanfiction. :D Brought to you by yours truly!


**Okay, homedogs. I usually do Kataang one-shots in Aang's POV, but I felt like a change. Another meaningless, fluff-filled story by yours truly, WaterWarrior294. **

…

She felt so helpless.

She glanced over at his limp body. She could see his chest rise and fall slowly, covered with bandages, his blankets spattered with telltale crimson.

Katara grimaced. Blood… so much blood.

She sat up, and wiped her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand. "Come on, Aang." She grabbed his shoulders, and turned him over gingerly. "Time for a healing session."

She slowly unwrapped his bandages, careful not to touch his gaping wound. The cloth was blotched with horrible flashes of red, the sticky, thick stuff staining her shaky hands. She winced; all of that blood…

The wound was horrible. It was an angry cobalt and maroon mixture, his torn muscle visibly throbbing. She could see a scarlet substance leaking from every muscle, the carmine liquid smearing his pale skin. The hole opened and closed with every breath he took, and there were dots of pink and white pus. There used to be a lot more, and she was grateful and relieved for the improvement.

Trying to swallow the lump in her throat, Katara willed a rivulet of water from a nearby pot she always kept full. She held it against his back, and it began to glow a bright blue.

She focused all of her concentration into that simple movement. She could feel it drain energy from her, making her body feel fatigued and sore.

When she was finished, she nearly collapsed in exhaustion. She summoned the water to splash back into her pot, and slumped, rubbing her aching arms.

She glanced back at his injury. No more pus. The muscle looked irritated, but slightly less angry. The blood was wiped away from his skin, and it looked slightly better than it did before.

Katara grinned triumphantly. "You go, girl, " she murmured to herself, and pulled out a fresh roll of bandages from underneath the metal bed.

She gently rewrapped the gauze around his warm torso, up and around his shoulder. Taping the last of the bandages to the cloth attached to his chest, she rubbed the sweat away from her neck.

Katara looked up at Aang's sleeping face. It was peaceful, and a small smile quirked at one end of his mouth. Fuzz was starting to grow on his head, the half-inch mess dark and shiny. His covered chest rose and fell, and he shifted in his sleep.

She shoved a stray piece of her own hair away from her eyes, acknowledging the half grin on his boyish features. "Jeez, Aang." Katara shook her head in disbelief. "You're smiling, even when you're unconscious and bleeding half to death from being shot in the back with lightning by a rabid Fire Nation witch." She chuckled at him. "You never cease to make the world brighter, do you?"

She paused, as if waiting for an answer. She received none.

Katara sighed, and pulled her knees close to her chest. "When will you wake up, Aang?"

Once again, no reply emerged from his smirking lips.

She couldn't stand the silence. She wanted to hear his voice again, the sound that always lifted her spirits, made her laugh, flooding her with happiness.

Before she had met Aang, she has always pictured the Avatar as a tall, masculine, tough man with clenched fists and piercing eyes, serious and deep. How wrong she was. Instead, it was a skinny twelve year old boy with arrow tattoos and a goofy, free-spirited attitude and mischievous glint in his stormy gray eyes. She had always believed that the Avatar would come back to save the planet, but it had never crossed her mind that he would be her best friend.

Yet, she couldn't ignore the fact that every time Aang showed her his ear-to-ear smile, it would make her palms sweaty, or if he offered to help her with a chore, she was tempted to reach over and hug him. No, she couldn't pretend.

Carefully, she reached over and turned him over onto his back, and tucked the sheets over his warm body.

She looked at the covers for a minute. _They seem too thin_, she thought. _What if he gets cold, and catches some kind of virus?_

When the thought came to her mind, her eyes widened in horror as she let that sink in. Then she averted her eyes back at Aang, who was curled up in a loose ball under the blanket.

Katara glanced around the room rapidly; no other source of warmth. Only chairs, a desk, and a scratchy mat in the middle of the floor. She considered using the rug for a minute, but decided against it.

She hesitantly slipped off of the mattress and onto the cold metal floor. She tugged her boots on, and made her way out the hall and down the door into her own temporary room.

She heaved the solid iron door open, and stepped inside. She walked over to her bed, and peeled the sheets off of them with a tug.

"Katara? What are you doing?"

Katara glanced back over her shoulder. "Hi, Sokka."

The warrior strutted over to her, clothed in his new fire nation soldier getup. "Why are you taking off the covers from your bed?"

She swallowed, and looked away. "To wash them."

Sokka cocked an eyebrow. "I don't need Toph to know that you're lying, Katara."

Katara sighed, and took the enormous bundle in her arms. "Aang looks cold. I'm giving him my blankets. End of story."

"Little sister, have you seen yourself lately?"

She shook her head furiously, and tried to brush past him. "No. And at the moment, I don't really care."

Sokka grabbed her arm, and dragged her across the room to the wash basin. Katara struggled against his grip, thrashing at her older brother.

"Sokka!" She tugged at her wrist, wincing at the clench of his fist. "Sokka, let go of me!"

The warrior slung her in front of the basin, pointing toward the mirror. "Katara, you look worse than Aang."

She glanced up at her reflection, and was surprised at what she saw. There were lavender circles under her eyes, which were outlined in red and droopy from exhaustion. Her usually tan face was pale, strands of frizz fell from her braid and into her face. Her lips were cracked and swollen from biting them in anxious nervousness, her cheeks streaked with tears and sweat and a little blood. Her shoulders slumped in fatigue, and perspiration soaked her temples and neck.

After registering out of her shock, she shrugged away from the mirror casually. "Yeah. I look terrible. So what?" She clenched the blankets she was holding to her chest, and stalked her way past Sokka and to the door. "Who really matters right now is Aang."

She felt a hand on her shoulder. "Katara, at least get some sleep."

Katara nudged out of his grip; his hand fell back to his side. "Even if I tried, I couldn't." She walked out of the entryway, leaving a mumbling Sokka.

When she arrived back in Aang's room, she shut the steel door behind her. Katara, with her arms full of blankets, walked to the bed, and placed one of the sheets over his limp body.

She straightened out the corners, and sat on the edge, watching Aang's sleeping figure.

Again, shame and guilt washed over her. Why couldn't she protect him? If she tried, she failed. First at the Northern Water Tribe, and then again at Ba Sing Se. Why wasn't she strong enough? Why didn't she stand up to the Dai Li and try to save him?

Tears came to her already sore eyes, and tumbled down her cheeks. She hugged the extra blanket to her aching chest, and laid down across the end of the bed, sobbing into the cotton. She cried and cried, unable to stop the flowing droplets. The fabric muffled her wails, and she stayed there at Aang's feet until exhaustion overtook her. Katara's scratchy eyelids caved into her need of sleep, and slipped closed, leaving her to nightmares of bolts of lightning and an unsuccessful, feeble attempt of rescue.

…

**I noticed that a lot of fanfictions like this involved Katara crying constantly, at no end, and Aang waking up to Katara sleeping beside him. Which I think is kind of sappy, considering I don't think Katara would do that. So, I thought to myself,**_** What if I did something like that, only took less emotion and added more detail and maturity? **_

**And so I did. I tried to make it sound as if Katara was not only sad that Aang was injured, but also furious with herself for not acting sooner. All of those other corny stories like this involved a happy ending, and lots and lots of emotion at the beginning. Sappy, sappy, sappy. **

**I'm kind of proud of myself for this one, though I think my best one so far is **_**Fire.**_** Check it out! I mean, you don't have to, but still. I think you'll like it. **

** Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it! :) **


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